Breaking: Tesco backs down and Oriental & Pacific cleans up

I’m so happy to announce that after we released our 2014
tuna league table, and after all your emails, tweets and calls to Tesco
over the last few weeks – we have a fantastic victory. The manufacturer of
Oriental & Pacific tuna has agreed to our demands. This means that fewer
sharks, turtles and rays will be killed as a result of the method used to fish
this tuna.

From now on, Oriental & Pacific will be sourced using
only tuna which has been caught without the use of deadly fish aggregation devices
(FADs). Together with big nets, this fishing method results in the death of
other marine creatures – some of which are endangered. Big nets and FADs are a
lethal combination.

In practice this means that you’ll be able to pick up a 100%
sustainable tin of Oriental & Pacific tuna by the end of April 2015. This
allows time for their existing stock to be sold through. It makes no sense for
this food to go to waste.

It all happened quite fast. We were gearing up to launch the
next phase of our campaign, which would’ve taken us directly into Tesco stores
all around the country, when Tesco HQ wanted to meet us. They were keen to
convince us they’ve changed, yet still couldn’t explain why they put Oriental
& Pacific on their shelves in the first place despite having a commitment
to ocean protection.

Just one week after that, we were sitting down with the head
honchos for Oriental & Pacific in the Greenpeace HQ, discussing how they
could meet our demands.

Clearly Tesco and Oriental & Pacific were feeling the
pressure coming at them, following Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight and the 85,000+
people that signed our petition
to the Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, demanding that Tesco drops the brand.

What’s clear is that people won’t tolerate Tesco choosing to
trash the oceans, just so that they can sell cheap, unsustainable tuna, under
the pretence of giving customers “choice”. But because so many of you have
spoken, thankfully Oriental & Pacific listened, and they have committed to
cleaning up the brand.

Other tuna companies have slipped backwards on their previous
commitments to us, and we’ve seen other new brands of tinned tuna appearing
on supermarket shelves, such as Osprey in Asda, which may also be dodgy. It’s
clear as well, that other supermarkets are gaining market share on the ‘big four’
such as the discounters Aldi and Lidl. We’ll be checking what’s in their tuna
tins too.